


Poems & Shorts

by mattthedungeonbat



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:33:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 6,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22332694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattthedungeonbat/pseuds/mattthedungeonbat
Summary: Just some poems and drabbles I wrote





	1. Maladaptive Daydreams

There is nothing more terrifying than being an island in a sea full of fish  
I am surrounded. Reality and people are omnipresent.  
And yet I am completely and totally alone.   
I’m sure there are other islands, other landmasses  
But they are far away from me  
Across the sea  
Among the fish  
Maybe even close to each other  
Just far from me  
And I am here wondering if the sky is even real  
When everyone else is down beneath the water  
A part of me is below the water too  
But mostly I’m in the air, and it feels surreal  
Are the birds real? The clouds? Are the trees real?  
Or did I just imagine them, parodies of the life around me that I cannot touch?  
Am I even real? There are no fish on me, no kelp like the sea floor has  
Did I imagine myself, a ghost looking at the world through a veil of water?  
I want to turn away from the clouds  
I want to go through the veil of water  
But I can’t  
I’m immovable  
And the clouds are always waiting, changing, living, smiling  
The fish dart around my shores but they do not conceive of me  
The clouds bless me with their rain and snow and hail.  
The trees dig their roots into my flesh.   
The birds walk across my beaches and mock me.  
They all conceive of me.   
How am I to tell that they are fake and the fish are real?  
Sometimes I feel like the only way to become real is to crumble  
Shatter  
Submerge totally even as it means destroying myself  
But I don’t want to drown my grass and my trees  
I don’t want to spill my sand into the ocean  
I don’t want to say goodbye to the clouds  
They’re all that keeps me swimming anymore


	2. I Don't Like Women.

I say that I don’t like women.

That’s not true.

Everyone likes women. Everyone knows that women are the most esteemed and most beautiful life form we have on this planet.

It’s not that I prefer men. Men can be small, yes, men can be lead. Men can be soft and sweet and all the things we’re taught are womanly.

But it’s not the same. 

It’s just that I’ve always feared touching a woman.

Not as though I haven’t.

Not as though I haven't been invited.

But it’s frightening in a way touching men isn’t.

A woman is pure, you know? A woman is sacred. The kind of holy fire I fully expect to sear my hands should I dare to touch her.

I feel as if I’m doing something wrong by touching a woman--

Because I’m afab?

Because I’m nonbinary?

Because I can’t be her man or her butch?

I’m an in-between, a nothing, and women deserve something full and true and just as incandescent as they are.

So I say I don’t like women.

Not because it’s true, but because with this lie I can protect them. 

If they think I don’t like women, they won’t pursue me. They won’t dirty themselves by cavorting with me.


	3. I Don't Like Women.... But

This doesn’t stop me from dreaming.

She is soft. And blonde. They’re always blonde.

She likes light jeans and pastel colors.

She wears crop tops a lot. Because she likes them, and they’re cute. And they show off the soft edge of her hip above her jeans.

No sharp bone there on her-- no, it’s soft. Gives perfectly beneath my fingers, dimples beautifully around the tips of my claws.

She likes it. There’s a look about her eyes-- cunning, devious. She knows that when she shows off the gentle planes of her stomach, tilting her hips just so, that I forget every word in every language I know.

I never grab her wrists. Her hips, her sides, her thighs, never her wrists. She’s paler than I am, like the palest pink rose petals beneath my tarnished golden hands, and I know she would bruise like an overripe peach.

But she likes it. She likes leaning over the back of my chair, golden waves brushing the sensitive skin of my neck. She smells like generic shampoo and chlorine and the roses blooming in our garden.

She lets me play with her hair. Lets me keep a hand on her at all times, an arm around her in public. I used to think she’d prefer to appear independent in public, but I don’t anymore. She’s possessive of me. 

Not in a harsh way. She doesn’t glare or posture. But somehow my arm around her is her possessing me, and I enjoy that.

With her, it’s all softness and innocent enjoyment of each other’s presence. One look from those wicked smart blue eyes and I know she’s telling me to get over myself. The tiniest frown at the edge of her lips is a loud reprimand.

_ You’ve nothing to feel guilty for, _ she’s saying.  _ You haven’t taken anything from anyone-- I asked you to possess me.  _

And I know. I know. And when she climbs into my lap and gives me those big damn eyes I don’t have any room in my head for anything but her. 

It’s good. I feel powerful when I’m with her. No self consciousness, no question. When I can walk, I dance with her. When I can’t, I trust that she’s strong enough to catch me when my legs fail and help me to my chair. She has such strong arms.

I love her arms.

So long as I can keep my focus on her, my world runs smoothly. Uncomplicatedly. It’s her and her shining hair and her brilliant eyes that crinkle at the corners because she doesn’t make full toothy smiles in public. 

When she’s not there, as long as I focus, I don’t fall back into the quagmire of fear.

The thing is, though…

She’s not real.


	4. I Like Me(n)

And the thing is, I don’t like women the way I like men.

It’s entirely different. Neither are sexual or romantic, but still--

Different.

When I like men, it’s competitive. 

It’s dark, and it never gets light. 

It’s daring eyes and teasing smirks, rough hands and bruises and knocking shoulders.

When I like men it’s not about emotion.

It’s as close to carnal as you can get without sex. 

Everything is fast-- even the slow things feel fast. 

Time flies away, rips away, slips away like silk beneath my feet.

When I see nothing but him, it’s because I am him.

When I touch him, I’m touching myself.

When I like men it’s as close as I can get to liking myself--

And is that fair to them?

Is it fair to like someone only because you see yourself in them?

Because you see a version of yourself you could actually like?

Is it really liking at all, or is it some twisted game of self harm

To like a man that way?

I don’t know. I’m not sure.

I look for a man to save me because I want me to save myself.


	5. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I thought I would take my traditional "imaginary future boyfriend" and make him a girl instead.

The first time I saw her, the world went silent.

It should be noted that for me, nothing is ever silent. My mind is loud. My ears hear things other people’s cannot. Even a quiet room is full of noises.

The first time I saw her, I was meeting all of my future housemates in person for the first time. Some of us had spoken online, or played D&D together. I knew, in theory, that she existed and would be one of my housemates. But none of that could have prepared me.

I sensed her before I saw her as I entered the room. It was an awareness I hadn’t felt in years, and then only with one person. For a fraction of a second, my heart raced in terror that it was  _ him _ in the room-- but I didn’t smell him. Didn’t hear his voice. Confusion clouded my mind-- if it wasn’t him, then who--?

She turned to look over the back of the couch at me and I was lost.

Pale. so incredibly pale-- not sallow and unhealthy like I was, but luminous. As light as the moon. Black hair curled in two layers, one about her ears and the other her jaw, and her eyes were the darkest I had ever seen.

Vaguely, I became aware that I was standing stock still in the doorway. Vaguely, I registered my heart beating too fast in my chest. Vaguely, I was certain people were probably talking, maybe even to me, but I heard nothing.

The whole world was silent. Silence, stretching like thick spidersilk, blanketing everything except us two. Time stretched and then lost meaning; light ceased to exist, sound ceased to travel. She stared at me with those deep black eyes and I stared right back. Two blank faces, perfectly impassive, gold and silver-- sandstone and limestone. Then, her eyes flicked down. Not to anything in particular, just a fraction of a centimeter lower, and back up again. The ends of her eyebrows moved upwards infinitesimally.

I allowed my face to break into a cautious smile, a hopeful invitation.

Her cold mask softened.

Time resumed, sound welling up around me, and I walked into the room and took a seat. I wasn’t looking at her anymore, but I didn’t need to. I could feel her, nearly see her, the way I had been able to with him.


	6. Smalltalk

She doesn’t talk much. That’s the first thing I learned about her. Most of the time, she observes quietly, those black eyes making it quite clear that she sees everything and has hundreds of thoughts about it. Sometimes, she’ll sign lazily with one hand, but mostly she doesn’t bother. She just watches.

When she does speak, her voice is low, smooth, mellow. It’s the kind of voice that gets lost easily in a group conversation-- I’m sure she got talked over a lot in school. She still does, sometimes, but with these people I don’t feel as shy about interrupting to give her the floor. Either way, she knows that I hear her. She has my undivided attention.

When she speaks directly to me, she signs fully as well. I don’t know if someone told her I don’t hear well, or if she somehow guessed in the course of her inescapable watching. She holds my eyes, and makes sure I can read her hands or her lips, or both. I appreciate that. So when I speak to her, knowing she prefers not to speak at all, I sign as well. It’s good practice for me-- She’s more fluent than I am, but she doesn’t seem to care at all. She shows me new signs and corrects me with impassive patience, and when she touches my hand to move it to the correct posture her fingers are like ice.

I think other people would say she’s intimidating. I know the same has been said of me, for whatever reason. She doesn’t make facial expressions, and although I wouldn't call her expression “resting bitch-face” I would call it cold, closed off-- statuesque. She has the ponderous quality of a statue with face downturned, eyes always staring unblinkingly but not rudely. She just wants to see everything, I think. I can understand that. I have a thing about  _ knowing _ everything.

Either way, I don’t find her intimidating. She’s impressive, certainly. Taller than I am by a good several inches, corded with slender muscle. I’m sure she must be terribly athletic. She moves with premeditated slowness but I’ve seen her catch things knocked off of counters before-- not with the whiplash reflexes I have, but smooth and perfect like water. I don’t know how she can move with such surety-- maybe it comes from being abled.

Some of our other housemates certainly seem a bit nervous around her. I haven’t asked them why. She isn’t rude or even necessarily cold; just quiet. But I enjoy her steady presence so I don’t try to break out of the pattern we’ve fallen into, of us sitting together rather than alone. Sometimes I knit or sew or write, while she likes to read. Sometimes we have perhaps unusually intense discussions about learning ASL.

Once, as I set aside a project I was embroidering, she moved from her seat to sit next to me on the sofa. Her legs are long, I noticed, looking down at the good three extra inches of her slender thighs compared to my more compact ones. She took up the embroidering I had just finished between those icy fingers, feeling the texture of the pattern with her fingertips.

I could feel her curiosity and her silent entreaty for me to speak, so I did.

“It’s just a test, really,” I murmured, looking critically at the flowers beneath her fingertips. “I can’t figure out how to get the pattern I want.”

I felt her curiosity, and she pulled her phone out and typed something in, tilting the screen to show me the embroidered-- peonies, I think-- common to Korean hand embroidery. 

“Mm,” I negated. “I kind of want to incorporate a more Indonesian style-- it’s not really traditional, but…”

_ “Like your sarong?” _ She asked, referencing my fancy sarong for formal occasions.

“Exactly. You’ve seen the kind of-- I mean, every country sort of has its own art style, and you’ve seen the one used in a lot of Indonesian traditional art.”

_ “Long,” _ She signed.  _ “Sort of…. Like tree roots.” _

“Which I just. I can’t figure out how to mix that with a more Mexican style of embroidery.”

_ “But this is beautiful,” _ She signed, holding up my work again and running her thumb across the pattern. She didn’t finish her sentence, but I heard the implied, “even the work that doesn’t come out how you wanted has value.”

“Thank you,” I said with quiet dignity, and left it at that.

It’s situations like those that brought us closer together.

I did try a few small pieces of Korean embroidery for her. She accepted them from me with a sort of quiet intensity that a more nervous person would have attributed to secret dislike, but I know better. One of them, tiny work around the edge of a plain handkerchief, she keeps with her almost constantly. She doesn’t comment on the lyrics I picked out in barely off-white thread around the edges, a nearly invisible prayer for a brighter future.

Once, she came home from work with a few small skeins of silk thread and I could immediately sense her childlike enthusiasm for me to try Chinese embroidery. I indulged her, of course-- I was excited too. We both love the particular shine of silk thread, glistening in succulent floral patterns. I embroidered a tiny flower of indeterminate type, the gradient deep gold to soft off-white. 

Now, it seems, my creation of fabric or clothing is her excuse to sit next to me rather than in a chair nearby. My heart races when she leans in particularly close to see what I’m doing, but it’s not an unpleasantly dizzying experience. Rather, it makes me feel a little more like I’m really alive. She smells cold and spicy, like snow and conifer. Not a smell I’ve ever been particularly fond of on myself, but it clings to her skin like sap to bark, natural and minorly mouthwatering.

One of my friends commented on our almost entirely silent socializing. They asked me if we were ever going to talk about the elephant in the room. 

We will. Someday, eventually. But for now, I enjoy the near perfect silence. I enjoy the intimacy and the comfort of our time spent together. If it’s meant to be discussed, life will lead us to discussing it. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the icy thrill of her peering over my shoulder as I work.


	7. Company

“Are you okay?”

Even through the fog of misery, my heart stutters at her voice. I snuffle pathetically, shame clawing at my brain. I don’t want her to see me right now. I don’t want  _ anyone  _ to see me right now. I don’t want to exist.

There’s no energy left in my body to open my mouth, so I don’t respond.

She steps into the room nearly silently, but I don’t need eyes or ears to know where she is. She’s never been in my room before-- that I know of, at least. Something dark mutters that she probably finds it immature and grimy. Her room and mine are polar opposites-- where mine is dark and perpetually crowded, hers is light and minimalistic. The smell of fermenting honey clings to my room. It’s a singular smell; my smell. But I know to some people it’s far too similar to the smell of decay.

She doesn’t comment on any of this. She doesn’t pick her way across my floor like it’s littered with feces. (It isn’t, but my family had always acted like it was.) She just walks quietly, normally, into my room and sits at the edge of my bed.

Normally I don’t like anyone in my room, let alone near my bed. But right now…. Why not. I don’t have the energy to feel anything other than depressed.

I can hear… see….  _ Feel  _ her look down for a moment. She doesn’t ask if something happened-- I’m sure she’s been depressed enough times to know that nothing needs to. I hear fabric whistle against fabric as she pulls something out of her pocket, a wash of her clean bright smell making its way to my face. 

“geudaeui changjowa salmui kkeute hamkke hari,” She says quietly, and my heart nearly stops because suddenly I know she’s holding the handkerchief I gave her, reading the hangul around the edge, and because she reads it with an inflection that tells me she knows the song it came from.

“Geudaeui jariga eodiljirado gwandae hari,” She continues. “Gyeolguk siryeonui kkeute mangaehari. Sijageun miyakhaljieonjeong kkeuteun changdaehari.”

My eyes burn with tears, and then ache because I’ve been crying too much already. I blink hard, annoyed when a few droplets escape anyways. I can imagine that she’s running the pad of her thumb over the embroidered peonies.

“It will be,” She murmurs. “You’re already blooming.”

“No I’m not,” I rasp, eyes searing with pain as the tears insist on existing. I laugh bitterly. “Have you  _ seen _ me? ….pathetic.”

“You replicate intricate embroidery on your first try and then you’re disappointed with yourself when you haven’t mastered it by then,” She says in a low monotone. “You create fabric, by hand, and make it into functional clothing. You write the most intricate stories and poems and songs. You’re fluent in three languages and semi fluent in--” I can hear her counting on her fingers for a moment. “--five or six, two of which are dead. Compared to most people you’re an entire tree of blossoms.”

“Fuck  _ other _ people,” I snarl, by voice breaking. “What about compared to  _ me?  _ I should at  _ least _ be fluent in Latin by now, not to mention fucking  _ Spanish.  _ Or French. Or Mandarin-- What’s the use of learning languages no one I know even speaks.”

“Fluency in ASL and small talk in Korean is no small feat.”

She’s pointing out, roundabout, that I  _ do _ speak languages people around me speak. She’s the reason I’m fluent in ASL at all. She groans quietly as she lies back on my bed, and I pull my legs up so she doesn’t touch them.

“I’m useless,” I mumble into my sheets.

She snorts quietly. 

She doesn’t say anything else. I’m sure she knows she doesn’t have the tools to convince me of anything right now. But even if I don’t want to admit it, I don’t feel as depressed with her here with me. The room isn’t as dark. 

My cat jumps up on the bed with a ridiculous “mrrp!” and perches herself properly near my legs, and unwelcomed my brain notes that I have both of my girls with me now.

_ She’s not mine, _ I remind my brain sternly. 

My brain doesn’t respond, but something deep and far outside of me seems to warm with amusement. 

_ “She will be.” _


	8. Ten Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an exploration of disability in the classroom

“You only have to climb ten steps,” The professor says, sitting on her cloud. The sun beams down behind her, blinding my eyes. “If you succeed, you may pass.”

I look around me. Left and right, other students, most of them with a small staircase of ten seven-inch-high stairs. Some students have twelve-inch-high stairs, one student has two-inch-high stairs. I look in front of me.

A marble wall, chest height. The first of my ten stairs.

“Begin!” Cries the professor.

The student with two-inch-high stairs skips to the top of his set and puffs up proudly, waiting for praise. 

“Perfect job!” The professor says. “You see class? It’s not hard at all, come on!”

The students with seven-inch-high stairs climb readily and stand at the top with pride.

“Very good!” Says the professor.

The students with twelve-inch-high stairs struggle a little, but they make it to the top. One of them has to sit down to catch her breath a few stairs from the top, but she still makes it. The professor hums in suppressed displeasure.

“Good.”

I stare at my chest-high stair. It’s glossy, glistening white marble.

“Come on now! Everyone else has done it. Was it hard, class?”

“No,” Calls the class, even the winded girl.

I take a few steps back, and then run at the step, jumping at the last second and managing to get my upper body onto the stair. I kick and wiggle my way onto it and stand up. Vertigo looms and for a second I nearly fall over backwards back onto the ground. 

“One,” The professor counts patronizingly.

The other students are beginning to murmur amongst themselves, shooting furtive glances at the professor since they’re technically still in class, but she pays them no mind. I huff a little for breath.

The next step is harder. I have no room for a running start, so I have to jump from standing. The edge catches me in the mid-ribs, and I grunt in pain, but I manage to swing a leg up and roll my way onto the second stair.

“That’s two,” Says the professor. “Come on, it’s not that hard. Climb the third step.”

I pant a little, lying on my back on the step. My ribs are blazing with pain, and I know it will bruise.

“You have to stand up,” The professor condescends helpfully.

I struggle to my feet with a groan, staggering as I nearly lose my balance again. I stare at the third step warily.

“Class, how many seconds do you think it took you to climb three steps?” The professor asks. “Three seconds? Five?”

I growl in frustration and launch myself at the third step. It catches my painfully across the top of my chest, and I cry out even as I scrabble for purchase against the smooth marble. Tears are budding in my eyes and sweat across my brow but I have to do this. I have to. I plant my foot against the face of the stair until it stops slipping, and keeping my arms on top I hop again and manage to haul myself over the edge, landing sharply on my hip and rolling to a stop. 

“Very good!” The professor says, and it’s now clear she’s speaking as if to a toddler. “Seven more, come on now!”

I gasp for air, eyes burning ferociously. 

“This isn’t fair!” I manage, voice weak and breathless.

“I gave everyone the same amount of stairs,” The professor says. The students are now muttering amongst themselves about me. “Everyone else climbed their ten stairs no problem. Is ten too hard for you?”

I puff and gasp for breath. The professor waits for an answer.

I struggle to sit up, sharp pain shooting through my hip, ribs, and chest, muscles groaning violently from fatigue. I try to stand-- stagger-- take a moment on one knee. I manage to raise up onto my feet.

The professor is looking at me pointedly. The other students are staring unabashed. In addition to the anger, shame burns in my chest. I stare at the fourth step. 

Running is out of the question. My legs are too tired to jump very high. I experiment with trying to find purchase on the face of the stair and climb my way up, but it’s too slick and I’m too tired. Cautiously, I investigate the edge of the staircase.

It’s not walled off on either side, no railings. I eye the sharp corner of the step warily, imagining it slamming into the center of my chest. It would hurt. A lot. I glance down-- a dangerous fall off the side. 

Fear gives me adrenaline, and I manage to launch myself from the very edge of the previous stair, my heel hanging in open air. The fourth stair edge catches me in my stomach, and even as I gasp and cry out in pain my hand is grabbing the side edge of the stair, using the tiny bit of extra grip to help drag myself up. I roll onto the fourth stair with a loud groan of relief, pain radiating throughout my body, chest heaving for breath.

The professor tuts and addresses the other students. “You may move on to the next task if you wish.”

I don’t see what the next task is. I take the second of their distraction to lie on my back, trying to slow my breathing.

“Step number five!” The professor calls, and her voice is hard and annoyed now. “We haven’t got all day now! Is this too hard for you?”

“Nobody-- else--” I gasp for breath. “--Had-- big st-- steps!”

“You all have the _same number of steps!”_ The professor repeats. “Are you going to hold up the class all day? Everyone else is already done!”

“I’m trying!” I yell, helpless frustration trying to drag tears from me.

“Obviously not hard enough!” The professor snaps back. I hear her voice become muffled as she turns to address the rest of the class in their new task. I’ve been left behind. “Let me know when you reach the top,” She casts over her shoulder as an irritated footnote.

* * *

By the time I reach the top of my ten stairs, the rest of the class is finishing up their fourth task. The professor floats over to me on her cloud, face drawn with disapproval.

“You made it.”

I gasp for breath, dripping with sweat and smiling proudly. I deserve praise after all of that.

She scoffs quietly. “Well, the rest of the class has already finished the lesson for the day. There’s no reason for you to stay here.”

“B--” I’m too winded to speak, but I cast a hand towards the other tasks.

“I don’t have all day,” She growls. “Class is tomorrow. Go home.”

She glares at me as I make my way to the exit. 

Shame riddles my body, making the shakes from my exhaustion worse. Bruises are forming bright across my skin.

I did my best. It was ten steps that were nearly as tall as I am but I climbed them, all by myself. It wasn’t too hard, I did it. I think about the hazy glimpse of the tasks I’d seen in the distance. I could have done those too, couldn’t I have? One of them even looked easy. I could have-- 

Doesn’t matter. My skin is hot from the exercise, sticky with sweat. I look down at my hand, riddled with tremors of exhaustion.

I did it. I climbed those god damned stairs.

When I come back tomorrow, it will be with rubber soled shoes and leather gloves to give me extra grip.


	9. Faces

I try to imagine him so I can write her

But I can’t

I can’t remember his face

Faces are hard to construct

For imaginary people

But for a while I had his.

Now, I can’t grasp it. I know he has pale skin,

A good jaw,

Black hair.

Black eyes, blank expression

But I can’t see him.

I see her.

Is it bad that I’m forgetting?

Forgetting the ideal man I designed for myself?

Does that mean something?

She acts different than him.

Does this mean he isn’t what I really want?

I don’t know.

She’s more outspoken than he was.

More obstinate.

He was a brat but she’s a Brat--

He would step on my toes,

But she can step into my space

Without ever once crushing my feet.

And I can’t fault her for it.

With him, he was disobeying 

What I had designed him for.

He was disobedient.

With her, she’s doing exactly what I want her to.

And doesn’t that say something?

That when it was a man,

A talented, beautiful

Man

That I didn’t want him to speak or come near me?

But when it’s her--

A woman--

An incredible woman--

Doesn’t that say something?

I don’t have her face down either

But she takes my breath away without even being real

I can see the way black hair curls around her ears

I can see the soft curve where her cheek meets her jaw

I can see her hands.

Long, slim

Maybe too skinny, too knobbly

But capable. Good hands

I can feel the pattern of her fingerprint

As she traces over the embroidery I gave her

When it was him, the roughness of his fingerprint was painful.

It’s not, with her.

I haven’t given her a name.

Not yet.

With my imaginary men it’s easy

To give them a name.

Usually James. Jamie.

A placeholder.

But her? I don’t have a girl who hurt me like that.

I have no one to base her off of

And so she’s growing on her own.

Not at all like him-- like Him.

Better than him in every way.

She already feels like Mine

My family

He never felt like anything other than

A toy


	10. Keeping Time

_ “Good morning,” _ She signs when she comes into the kitchen.

I smirk over my mug of tea, because it’s not morning. “Morning.”

She bustles about, fixing herself something at the counter behind me. I don’t bother to look, and after a few minutes she takes a seat in front of me.

_ “Why is it you sleep so late?” _

I can see the flicker of her eyes where she acknowledges that maybe it’s rude to ask, but I don’t care. I’m surprised no one has asked before now, actually.

“Dunno,” I say. “I’ve always had trouble sleeping, but at some point I started having trouble waking up too. And the worse my health is, the more sleep I need, so.”

She squints at me.

“What?”

_ “You’re an extraordinarily good liar, you know that?” _

I smirk smugly. “I do know that, thank you.”

_ “So what then?” _

I shrug and look away from her, examining the kitchen wall behind her shoulder. “Doesn’t matter.”

I can feel her deeply incredulous expression and sigh.

“Once I was expected to know the time for myself, I started having trouble waking up in the morning. The more I pay attention to what time it is, the worse my sleep schedule is. That’s why I have such a good schedule when we go camping-- no phones, no clocks.”

_ “You’re still fatigued, though.” _

“Well, yeah, but that’s not going to change. I just need to not do as much as other people.”

She fiddles with a hangnail absentmindedly for a moment, before signing,  _ “So you can wake up if you don’t look at the clock?” _

“I mean-- yeah, like when I was little enough my mom woke me up, I was fine then. But now everything is about what time it is, hurry, you have to get up, you’ll be late, it’s getting late, it’s getting late! And the stress just makes me even more tired.”

_ “Why haven’t you asked one of us to get you up in the mornings? We could do that.” _

When I glance at her, she’s frowning, and I shrug and look away again.

“I’m not a baby. I don’t want to burden you guys anymore than I already do, when you all have to work so hard for the rent. I don’t know.”

Her frown has morphed into a scowl, and she leans towards me over the table.

_ “You’re not a burden. Would it help you if I dragged you out of bed in the mornings?” _

“No-- you don’t have to--”

_ “Would it help you?” _

I sigh. She knows I don’t lie when asked a direct question-- I could weasel my way around it truthfully but it’s a lot of effort when she’ll know I’m avoiding her question.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “I think so.”

She nods decisively.  _ “Alright then. Turn off all your morning alarms-- yes, all of them. You don’t need them anymore. I will physically haul you out of bed and stick you in your chair, no clocks allowed.” _

I sigh again, fighting an ironic smile. “You don’t have to.”

_ “Shut up,” _ She signs, standing up to tend to whatever she was making.

“Yes, ma’am,” I drawl.

She snorts and bumps me with her hip as she walks past. I watch her for a moment.

I’m grateful for her. Really, I am. I tend to attract forceful women into my life, for whatever reason-- I guess I never really lost the baby face, but I don’t honestly mind it. Being aggressively cared for isn’t something I’m used to by any stretch of the imagination, and especially not when it strays out of the emotional realm. Everything is limited, everything is conditional. And then these girls come into my life, kick the door in, and tell me to shut up and let them handle it.

It’s too hilarious to be embarrassing-- and anyways, I think it’s most guys’ dream to have such a strong woman in his life. Where other people would find it embarrassing to be babied, I find myself a little smug when it happens. Besides, I do technically need it. I’ve fought having some uncaring stranger as a caretaker since I was diagnosed with a disability-- I’ll never willingly hand myself over to more trauma. It’s pleasing to feel like I've cheated the system, somehow, and come out on top.

When she turns around, frowning at me for staring for so long, I smile and indulge my idiotic romantic side. I take her wrist gently in my hand, pleased that she doesn’t resist, and cradle her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

“Thank you,” I say simply, and I leave it at that.

She blinks, staring at me, and I can’t hide my smirk when I notice the very slight blush across her cheeks. She blinks again, as if pulling herself out of shock, and nods a few times stiffly, returning to her food prep. I purse my lips so I don’t laugh at her reaction and sip my tea.


	11. My Gender Is

My Gender Is...

"Fuck you!" They scream over their shoulder into the smoky air. Their face is obscured by black fabric. 

They light the Molotov cocktail and toss it into the shattered window of a police car before sprinting away.

My Gender is...

They turn their wheelchair, drawing the bow and sighting with smooth precision.

The arrow whistles free and they stare critically at their perfect bullseye before grunting and selecting another arrow.

My Gender Is...

Artistic hands deftly pluck a needle from the fabric, drawing a line of luminous silk thread through.

Flashes of color weave into the shape of a flower, petals glowing like smoke on a sunset. 

Their fingers ache deeply, bruised and spotted with blood, but a little saliva keeps the cloth clean.

My Gender Is...

They see her crying around the back of the building and step out, shielding her from anyone's line of sight.

This is their place, they know as they calmly take her into their arms, as she cries onto their shoulder.

This is what they're here for, they know as they make eye contact with a curious passer by and glare in warning.

She looks at them with blue eyes full of tears, and she's beautiful.

My Gender Is...

"Oof-- Help--" She says, reaching up a hand. They lean down and grasp her hand in theirs, leaning all their weight back to help pull her up onto the ledge.

She huffs, out of breath, and offers them a lively grin.

My Gender Is...

The cave glows ominously in the twilight, walls damp with water, crystals shimmering with internal light.

Footsteps echo loudly down the cave system like overblown water drops, and with every ricochet the tenuous light flickers.


	12. Longing

Kiss me softly

Tell me that you love me

I've always been alone

So the word 'love' hurts

Kiss me sweetly

Tell me that you need me

No one's ever told me that

So I cling to your words


End file.
